It is an absolute honor to be joined by synth master Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails, to show us the ins and outs of various effects and synthesizers! Alessandro is incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to synths, and he walked us through the details of the Abstrakt Instruments Avalon. Based out of Huntington beach, Abstrakt Instruments has made some amazing true to form synths and filters. The Avalon is a bass synthesizer based off of the Roland TB-303 bassline from the 80’s, known for its prevalent use in the beginnings of Chicago house music. While modeled after the 303, the Avalon sports an additional sub oscillation level setting as well as in-depth envelope attack/delay controls. With the Avalon, Alessandro was able to come up with some groovy basslines on the fly! When it was my turn to play bass – I definitely wanted to keep the groove he started going, I live for those low end synth lines. The Avalon is great for hip-hop, and electronic sounds that has a really musical sensibility that needs to be heard to be believed.

Photo credit: SxPro.co.uk

For extra beef Alessandro ran the Avalon through his favorite fuzz, the Retro Mechanical Labs Electron Fuzz, which he was able to manipulate the Avalon’s synth bass line with, adding some extra grit to the sequence. The Electron Fuzzis a really cool fuzz with a high end boost and the ability to run your signal through two additional gain stages for some really in your face fuzz. It’s a really dope sounding pedal with a great vintage radio aesthetic that also has its own VU meter!

Photo credit: Retro Mechanical Labs

Peep the video below of Alessandro running the Avalon through the Electron fuzz, followed by me running it with bass and then Nick with guitar. Super gnarly, and super musical sounds, check it out!

Stay tuned for more from us, and more from Alessandro! Leave a comment below and let us know what you think!